


Calendars and Mirrors

by Eiiri



Series: Lycanthropic Studies [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: First Person Narrator, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Marauders, POV Sirius Black, Second Person Remus Lupin, Self-Reflection, Sirius Black Narrator, Tattoos, musings, poem, well it's sort of a poem, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiiri/pseuds/Eiiri
Summary: Sirius muses about how his experiences have effected his sense of the passage of time and the continuity of his life.A kind of response to my earlier poem-fic "I Can Measure My Life In Full Moons and Moments With You"
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Lycanthropic Studies [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/575263
Comments: 14
Kudos: 51





	Calendars and Mirrors

It’s funny how we measure time

We spend our youth counting it in school years, the number of stripes on our ties

Even that divides down further into a series of befores and afters

 _Before_ we knew

 _After_ you got that goddamn badge

 _Before_ we all started sneaking out together

After I finally kissed you

That’s the pattern that persists past school

Long after the curfews and rules lose their grip—to the extent they ever bound us at all

 _Before_ and _after_

And worst of all, _during_

There was before our lives were torn apart, back when we could still remember what it felt like not to doubt every promise

Then there was after

And All Hallows’ Day, the first of November, I was ready to die

I’d lost you already somehow in the darkness and shuffle

I had nothing to cling to, no one to turn to

All it took was one more lie to drop me into what looked like forever

But not the forever I’d gambled on that day

And not the forever we’d painted for ourselves in half drunk whispers late at night and alone

The forever I got was a lifetime of _during_

Meanwhile, in real life, time moved on without me

I failed to count the days, lost track too quickly

It worked better to count time like you did

In sweeps measured by the waxing and waning of the moon as glimpsed through barred windows

Then later by its mirror inked into my skin by hours of illicit pinpricks

I never expected to get another _after_ , but I planned for one

Pinned my hopes on it

My sanity

After I get out

After I find that bastard

After I give him what he deserves, what I should have when I had the chance, what everyone thinks I already did

 _Then_ it will be worth it

But I wasn’t counting on you

Wasn’t counting on the kids, this new generation who are, in some ways, so much like us

In other ways so much better

Wasn’t ready to come to the moment I had been plotting for more than a decade and find myself asking “what’s next?”

For a moment I could see the future unfolding

Old plans rebuilding

Then it was all ripped away again

And I was thrown back to _before_

Alone and counting the days

Watching the phases and thinking of them in terms of their meaning for you

I still do

I have since we were kids

And I think I always will

I guess I guaranteed that by choosing this tattoo

But I think that I would anyway just from having loved you

We have a past in common

But went such different ways

I was scared

The moments lost would outweigh the older moments shared

You have your own set of befores and afters but they mostly match to mine

The same moments from a different angle

And that’s always been the case, even back when we were young and dumb enough to think that experiences shared were experienced the same

I don’t dare look far in the future now, I’ve learned not to trust the view

There’s so few things I can count on

Top of the list is the passage of time—no magic in this world has stopped it yet and I’m convinced by now that only the desperate and stupid would try

Next, is that whatever happens to me and whatever I may do, I can’t say my life’s been meaningless

Because as much as yours means the world to me

Mine’s meant at least something to you


End file.
